From Rugged to Riches 19

The Road to Redemption: From Rugged to Riches, Week 20

Greetings frens: And it’s another good Monday morning. Tariffs took a back seat in what was also another literally explosive and gripping week. As always, I hope this nineteenth weekly update finds everyone safe, in good health, wealth and spirits. There was a lot of movement, a lot of developments and a lot of continued political unrest around the globe. So let’s get into it and start breaking it down. 👇

The Macro: Despite it being another incredibly hectic news week, I was regretably rather busy with some personal goings on, so was unfortunately a bit behind the ball in my normal writing and news aggregating process. I think I still got the major headlines, but as always, it’s very possible I have missed something important. Donald Trump’s 79th birthday/US army 250th anniversary parade (pictures) and the protests against were a strong dichotomy for the weekend. It is estimated approximately 5 million individuals (roughly 2% of the American population) were in attendance at various protests throughout the country to signal disapproval of the event and overall actions this administration has been taking.

Monday the markets opened hot- the pump from Sunday continued with force. Even though there has been constant uncertainty and shifting since the administration change in January and especially since April 2nd “Liberation Day,” we “are back to square one,” by all reasonable metrics. In hopes of making some progress with trade negotiations, the EU said they are willing to accept a 10% US tariff as well as banning Russian gas purchases. This would be another win for the Trump administration, but they have yet to put pen to paper and formalize an agreement. As the United States seems to continue its campaign of isolation, travel bans have been added on to more African countries and tourist destinations, including Egypt. These countries have had 60 days to meet US travel requirements and that time is nearing (August 13 will mark 60 days). In a harbinger of events to come, Donald Trump suggested, via social media, followed by Israel’s military issuing an evacuation warning for 330,000 citizens in Tehran.

The previous day’s momentum proved to be unsustainable. Tuesday markets opened lower as fears of the Iran-Israel debacle continued to mount. Overnight Russia launched a drone & missile attack on a 9-story apartment building in the Ukrainian capital of Kyiv, killing 15 at the time, with the death toll sadly later nearly doubling in one of Russia’s deadliest assaults in months . As wars continue to distastefully pop up and nuclear is becoming a real buzzword again, AP News released this interesting article showing nuke stockpiles by country. The Bank of Japan held interest rates steady, as expected, in an attempt to help curb inflation. There were also no changes made to the country's 400 billion Yen ($2.76 billion) quarterly bond purchasing plan. With pressure on the US bond market and investors watching closely, the World Gold Council released their report showing 73% of the Central Banks who responded to the survey are lowering their USD reserves in favor of gold. I would actually be alright with a world that has shifted to more gold over fiat. Conversely, in a historic crypto regulatory move, and what could possibly drive demand for USD, the GENIUS Act was passed into law. The scheduled G7 meeting became the G6 when, in an unprecedented move, Donald Trump left a day early- but not because of the growing situation in the Middle East. In another classy policy change of heart, the Trump admin reversed course on the ICE raid/deportation exemptions for farm, hotel and restaurant workers that were granted just days prior. While all of this is going on, the BIG BEAUTIFUL BILL is getting more expensive- new estimates are saying the bill will be adding $2.8 trillion over the next decade, compared to the previous $2.4 trillion estimate over the same timeframe.

While hopeful to make a mutually beneficial trade deal with the US, Canada is also exploring means to diversify the country's export markets and distance themselves from the turbulence and uncertainty that comes with the US administration’s tariffs and trade wars. Wednesday we saw a slight bounce in the market- an attempt at recovering some of the previous day’s losses. In the morning Iran unleashed the Fattah-1, a hypersonic missile, into Tel Aviv. Video shows the missiles streaking the skies, prompting some social media users to liken the missiles to modern-day dragons. Despite his numerous attempts, Donald Trump was unable to get Fed Chair Jerome Powell to lower interest rates, which remained steady, as expected, at 4.25-4.5%.

Thursday morning President Trump took to his Truth Social platform to verbally berate Fed Chair Jerome Powell while calling for a 2.5 point cut in interest rates- or what would be the equivalent to more than five cuts in one sweeping motion. In a briefing from Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt, the White House made it clear Donald Trump would make a decision to support Israel in their conflict with Iran by striking the latter within two weeks, which didn’t take that long at all. While the world waited, Iran started making renewed threats to close the Strait of Hormuz, a major trade route, if the United States joined the war and backed Israel. Closing it would stop the petroleum exports dramatically hurting the global economy outside, while also hurting their own economy in the process. There is mounting pressure from certain sides for the US to join the Israel-Iran conflict, as the US is the only country with deep-penetrating and non-nuclear bunker buster bombs. Experts did not currently think if the assumed target of the Fordow Fuel Enrichment Plant is hit there would be a serious radiation concern for the area, hypothesizing most releases would be trapped by the collapsing rocks and debris of the surrounding mountain. Time will tell.

Friday night the Ukrainian cities of Kharkiv and Odesa were hit in drone strikes, claiming at least one civilian life and luckily only injuring less than ten at the time of writing, as Russian targets have increasingly escalated to more populated areas of the country. While the drones were flying and bombs continued dropping from both sides, diplomacy was trying to survive in Geneva; talks with Iran continued and understandably the Foreign Minister called out the betrayal of being attacked during previous nuclear negotiations. A document allegedly leaked to the EU showed “indications” of Israel violating human rights in Gaza. The report is set to come out on publication date. As global defenses have been building, in a show of American exceptionalism, Donald Trump wants the US to be the only NATO country to not meet the 5% GDP defense spending. The American tourism industry continues to suffer, particularly seeing sharp declines in flights from western Europe. The ensuing domino effect has forced almost the entire airline industry to reduce ticket prices just to fill seats.

Saturday Iran awoke to a strike from Israel on a nuclear research facility near the city of Isfahan (population ~2 million as of 2016)- this was the second attack on the same facility. Iran retaliated with what Israel called a “small barrage,” which was easily dispatched. While the world waited on a decision from US President Donald Trump, Israel began moving forward with the possibility of war on a second front (first Gaza, now Iran)- and from the outside looking in, one might think the decision has already been made. US B2 bombers carrying the previously mentioned bunker busters have been tracked moving to the Pacific island of Guam to store the warheads until a more official decision was made. If they landed, they did not stay there long, as later in the evening Donald Trump announced a successful attack on Iranian plants, primarily Fordo, claiming “It is gone,” while explosions were heard at the Isfahan and Natanz sites as well. He finished the announcement with a tone deaf call for peace. This sudden move by the President could possibly have violated the Declare War Clause, many have interpreted the sole move to bypass Congress to be a criminal act. The markets closed decidedly lower amid now validated fears of wars only growing.

Sunday with bombs dropping, so did the markets. All eyes were on Iran and Israel as the weekend closed out. “Completely and totally obliterated,” is the phrase US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth used to describe Iran’s nuclear sites and facilities after the previous day’s airstrikes. That move by American forces made “every American a target,” that had not left the area following Trump’s earlier suggestion, with Iran vowing retaliation. Leaders around the world were largely unimpressed with Trump’s sudden involvement in the foreign affairs, expressing concern about violating international law (specifically UN Charter Chapter 1 Article 2, Section 4) and further stoking tensions in that already troubled area of the world. Adding to economic warfare, Iran has decided to close the Strait of Hormuz, following the previous day's indiscretions. This is globally problematic, as I mentioned above, that strait is an important trade route- particularly for oil, moving 20.1 million barrels daily (expect prices to rise). At the time of writing WTI Crude is up 2.16%, sitting at $75.45.

While perusing my usual news sources I did catch a few pieces of miscellaneous news that caught my eye for the week; more than 3,000 miles below the ice in Antarctica, strange radio signals were detected by researchers studying cosmic neutrinos. The team has hopes to use their findings in new practical physics applications- once the anomaly is understood. Not unlike the markets, it would seem new developments in the field of physics are happening everyday, this week Canadian scientists at the University of Waterloo created a ball that can move vertically up walls (rather slowly, at a rate of 1mm/2 seconds) without any mechanical assistance. This week we witnessed the largest data breach in history (to date), with 16 billion passwords and other login credentials coming from 30 datasets. The global population is about 8.2 billion, which implies multiple accounts per person were hit in this attack.

Update 19: This week with the time I had I stepped out of focusing on Solidity and contracts and started working more on JavaScript via Alchemy University. I had completed the course a few years back but am certainly in need of a refresher. And as I stated before, while I’m getting better at direct contract interaction, a UI is undeniably an easier method of interacting with the web3 world.

Pionex Bot: BTC +6.14% / ETH +9.84%

On-chain endeavors: It will never cease to amaze me just how many free tools there are at our disposal- though a blockchain is just timestamped data, so analytics make sense. From standard block explorers to sites like Arkham, Defillama and Dune, the abundance of information is breathtaking- and truly makes day-to-day on-chain navigation much easier. This week with the help of some choice LookOnChain posts I busied myself snooping in some wallets, considering several as potential future copy-trade candidates. Further investigation is needed, but there have been a few hopefuls that I began watching with the help of Cielo bot on Telegram.

This week the state of Texas joined other US states in creating a Strategic Bitcoin Reserve, signed into law on Friday. However, where this Reserve differs from other established reserves, this one may grow through direct purchases and donations- not just seizures and forfeitures of the asset.

EVM: Even though I’ve never been a huge fan of Jpeg NFTs, this week I was working on OpenSea rewards quests, though there were unfortunately several that seemed to have API issues on my end, frustratingly leading to them being “incomplete,” despite meeting the requirements.

Continuing the Optimism SuperStacks campaign, the rewards system and points multiplier is one that changes frequently enough to warrant keeping an eye on. This week I moved the USDT0 from Euler and created a USDT0-USDT LP on Velodrome. In regards to my Plaza levETH-USDC LP, this week it finally broke to the levETH side, I was intending to wait for a market push to sell a bit off before making a new LP, but things are getting a little spooky in DeFi land so for now I am just holding the spot position and will add to a new LP as I get the opportunity.

My EVM perps trading has moved host platforms from GMX to Vest Exchange on zkSync Era. The wide variety of assets to choose from is nice- as are the lower transaction costs associated with zk. After trading a bit (AAVE & UNI), I decided the platform operated smoothly and opted to add some liquidity into the pool. Beyond the leveraged trading, I deployed a (very) small amount of fresh stables, buying more ETH and wBTC, both of which were both promptly put in Dolomite, though I have also been considering some vaults on Morpho Blue lately.

⭐ This week Phase 1 of the R2 testnet concluded, with Phase 2, featuring “full yield simulation” set to start June 23 (today).

Solana: Trading perps is by and large still the primary use case for this chain, at least for me. This week I focused on reclaiming my ratio and some of the funds I gave back to the market in the past week. I was actually pretty successful with that endeavor- while still underwater compared to three weeks ago I’m creeping my way back up. This week I sold my $JLP holdings for SOL while it was at $136. As the week progressed, this proved to be a less than wise move- not horrible, but already in the red.

What I am currently looking at:

As I said above, this week I had some personal things going on, so I didn’t really have much time to investigate two new projects. However, I have been working on an op-ed regarding the history and growth of the internet & AI, that I hope to be publishing sometime soon, ideally in the middle or end of this week. Stay tuned.

1️⃣ Sophon Network: Sophon Network is an EVM layer 2 scaling solution built using zkSync’s Elastic Chain framework and zero-knowledge proofs technology. The chain has adoption and ease of use in mind, with account abstraction built in, complimenting the low fees, high throughput and low latency- all of which make it a perfect network for general consumers. Through two rounds the project was able to raise a publicly disclosed $70 million, with an undisclosed amount raised during their third round. At the time of writing there are only two apps on the new chain’s DeFi ecosystem, however, the larger ecosystem is quite robust and diverse with its offerings. Come join the Discord.

📆 Fed Chair Jerome Powell will be testifying before the House Financial Services Committee Tuesday the 24 and Wednesday the 25.

📆 NATO has their scheduled meeting in The Hague to discuss challenges faced regarding deterrence and defense spending Tuesday the 24 to Wednesday the 25.

🔓 Blast has a 42.002 billion $BLAST unlock on Thursday the 26.

📆 Friday the 27: US Core PCE Price Index m/m (+0.1%), US Personal Income m/m (+0.8%) US Personal Spending m/m (+0.1%).

🔓 Optimism has a 32.21 million $OP unlock on Sunday the 29.

🚨 The Optimism SuperStacks Campaign ends Monday the 30.

Wrap Up/TLDR: While I’m sure there were some developments I missed, it was certainly another exhilarating week for the world as a whole- and it seems like things may just be getting started. Prepare for a hot summer and stay safe folks. As we conclude this newsletter, you know I must say, as always, I appreciate your reading.

And remember, WGMI, or else. Until next week,

-Jinzo

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